Vatican announces publication date of long-awaited ‘McCarrick Report’

Vatican City, Mar 14, 2019 / 09:16 am (CNA).- Cardinal Godfried Danneels died Thursday at the age of 85 in his native Belgium. Danneels served as Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels and leader of the Belgian Bishops’ Conference for more than thirty years.

In later life, Danneels was widely recognized as an influential member of the college of cardinals and an at times controversial figure.

“This zealous pastor served the Church with dedication not only in his diocese but also at the national level as President of the Conference of Bishops of Belgium, while being a member of various Roman Dicasteries,” Pope Francis wrote March 14 in a telegram to the bishops of Belgium expressing his condolences.

“Attentive to the challenges of the contemporary Church, Cardinal Danneels took an active part in various Synods of Bishops, including those of 2014 and 2015 on the family. He has just been reminded of God at this time of purification and of walking toward the Resurrection of the Lord,” Francis said.

Considered among the more progressive churchmen of his generation, Danneels was an enthusiastic supporter of the liturgical reforms which followed Vatican Council II. He was also a prominent advocate for decentralized Church governance and interreligious dialogue.

As leader of the Church in Belgium, the cardinal was an established figure in national life, keeping close company with politicians and members of the royal family. He was sometimes criticized for his apparent willingness to embrace secular-liberal politics, once controversially describing same-sex marriage as a “positive development” in Belgium.

In recent years, accusations of mismanagement and cover-up of clerical sexual abuse cast a shadow over his past leadership of the church in Belgium.

Danneels was at the center of a national scandal when the Belgian newspapers De Standaard and Het Nieuwsblad published transcripts of a recording in which he appeared to pressure a victim of sexual abuse to remain silent.

The victim had been abused by his uncle, Belgian Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, beginning at the age of 5. When the victim met with Danneels to report the abuse and insist on his uncle’s removal from office, the cardinal told the man that Vangheluwe would retire in a few months.

“I don’t think you’d do yourself or [your uncle] a favor by shouting this from the rooftops,” Danneels was recorded saying.

The cardinal denied that he intended any cover-up.

Danneels was born June 4, 1933 in Kanegem, diocese of Bruges, and grew up in a family of six in Eastern Flanders.

Ordained in 1957, Danneels went on to teach theology at the Flemish Catholic University of Louvain as a professor for ten years, after earning a doctorate at the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome.

Danneels was appointed as the bishop of Antwerp by Pope Paul VI in 1977, became archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels in 1980, and created cardinal by Pope John Paul II three years later.

After his retirement in 2010, Danneels would infrequently speak in public.

In 2013, Danneels stood next to the newly elected Pope Francis on the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica. Pope Francis later invited Danneels to attend the two sessions of the Synod of Bishops on the family as a special delegate.

In a 2015 authorized biography of the cardinal, Danneels was listed as being part of a group of cardinals who coordinated efforts ahead of the conclave that elected Pope Francis.

The funeral for Cardinal Danneels will take place in the Cathedral of St. Rombouts in Mechelen, and will be celebrated by the current Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels Cardinal Jozef De Kesel.

In a March 14 statement announcing the death, Cardinal Kesel recognized Danneels’ years of service, “We are very grateful to Cardinal Danneels. For many years he has exercised shepherding in the Church in a period of fundamental changes in Church and society.”

“He has experienced trials, and in the end he was greatly weakened and exhausted. We continue to thank him gratefully. May he rest in God’s peace,” he said.

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Pope Francis waves to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the recitation of the Regina Caeli on May 7, 2023. / Vatican Media

CNA Staff, May 7, 2023 / 06:30 am (CNA).

Pope Francis on Sunday warned against the danger of living life without a sense of purpose or a destination to set our course by, reminding the faithful that Jesus is “our compass for reaching heaven,” our true home.

Speaking to pilgrims gathered on a sunny day in St. Peter’s Square to pray the Regina Caeli, the pope reflected on the day’s Gospel reading, in which Jesus consoles his disciples before his ascension, telling them, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6).

“Jesus sees the disciples’ distress, their fear of being abandoned, just as it happens to us when we are forced to be separated from someone we care for. And so, he says: ‘I go to prepare a place for you … that where I am you may be also,” the pope said.

“Jesus uses the familiar image of home, the place of relationships and intimacy. In the Father’s house — he says to his friends, and to each one of us — there is space for you, you are welcome, you will always be received with the warmth of an embrace, and I am in Heaven to prepare a place for you!”

Pope Francis said that keeping in mind “where life is headed” is the way to get through the experiences of “fatigue, bewilderment, and even failure.”

When we lose sight of what makes “life worth living for,” he said, we “compress our life into the present,” the pope said. We merely seek maximum enjoyment and “end up living day by day, without purpose, without a goal.”

“Our homeland, instead, is in heaven; let us not forget the greatness and the beauty of our destination!” he urged.

But if we know the goal, we also have to know how to get there, the pope continued. When we face problems or when there is the “sensation that evil is stronger,” we ask, like Thomas, “What should I do?”

The pope responded: “Let us listen to Jesus’ answer: ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life’ … He is the way and therefore faith in him is not a ‘package of ideas’ in which to believe, but rather a road to be traveled, a journey to undertake.”

“He is the way that leads to unfailing happiness,” the pope said, and imitating him is “the compass for reaching heaven: loving Jesus, the way, becoming signs of his love on earth.”

“Let us not be overwhelmed by the present,” the pope said. “Let us look up, to heaven, let us remember the goal, let us think that we are called to eternity, to the encounter with God.”

The pope then led the traditional Easter midday prayer, the Regina Caeli, in Latin.

After the prayer, the Holy Father noted two beatifications that happened on Saturday, one in Spain and one in Uruguay.

The first bishop of Uruguay, Bishop Jacinto Vera, was beatified in Montevideo. The bishop, who died in 1881, “witnessed to the gospel with powerful missionary ideals in the very difficult times of civil war,” the pope noted.

In Spain, Conchita Barrecheguren was beatified. Her full name was María de la Concepción del Perpetuo Socorro, but she was known as Conchita (the nickname for those named after the Immaculate Conception). The pope recalled how she “was bedridden for a long time and was able to face her illness with a lot of courage and strength.” She died in her early 20s, in 1927.

The pope also greeted a number of the faithful who were in the Square. Among those he welcome were members of the Meter Association who were dressed in bright yellow clothing and were accompanied by their founder, Father Fortunato di Noto. This association works to combat the abuse of minors. The pope noted that they were marking a remembrance day for victims. He encouraged them in their work and thanked them, reminding them that Jesus meets them in the young people they assist. I “accompany you with my prayers,” he said.

The pope also had a special hello for members of the Swiss Guard with their friends and family members, who participated in Saturday’s swearing-in ceremony.

There were 23 recruits sworn in on May 6, the tradition day of the initiation ceremony, which marks the anniversary of the sacrifice of 147 Swiss guards who died during the Sack of Rome in 1527 as they protected Pope Clement VII.

Finally, the pope noted the May 8 feast of Our Lady of Pompeii.

“In this sanctuary where we pray for peace, and especially in this month of May, we pray the rosary asking Our Blessed Mother for the gift of peace, especially for the people in Ukraine.”

He expressed his wish that leaders of countries “would listen to the desire of the people — who continue to suffer, and who desire and long for peace.”

The shrine in Pompeii — just a few minutes from the city that was famously destroyed by Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D. — is dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary and was renovated in the late 1800s.

The history of the shrine is a testament to God’s practice of choosing the weak and bringing good out of evil. The shrine was renovated by Bartolo Longo, who had joined a sect during his time as a student and became a satanic priest. He publicly ridiculed Christianity, until eventually a friend introduced him to a saintly Dominican priest, and he converted. Longo, who became a mystic devoted to the rosary, died in 1926.

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Cardinal Angelo Becciu. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA

Rome Newsroom, Nov 17, 2023 / 14:00 pm (CNA).
After almost two and a half years, the Vatican’s “trial of the century,” in which the disgraced Cardinal Angelo Becciu is a defendant, is winding … […]